| | - |
|
People's jury system with Chinese characteristics |
 |
+ |
- |
17:06, September 06, 2007 |
The first working meeting of a people' s jury system in courts all over China was held in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday. This was the first of such a meeting since the founding of the new China in 1949. The meeting will establish a people' s jury system, with Chinese characteristics, as an important democratic and political system in China.
Jury system alleviates contradictions
China' s top judge, Xiao Yang, said that by the end of 2006, 55,681 highly qualified and representative jurors had participated in a court trial. Between May 2005 and June 2007, the people' s jurors participated in 644,723 cases, at 13.82 cases per person, and 20.09% of total common procedure cases. Eighty percent of cases in which people' s jurors participated were mediated by the jurors and defendants followed through with their sentences. This means once the case was settled, the problem was solved. It played a positive role in promoting social harmony and stability.
Xiao Yang said one of the outstanding issues in Chinese society today is that there are increasingly more contradictions among people. Such contradictions are often the source of friction between people in their daily lives and productivity. Opposing parties often know or live near one another. Therefore, to solve such problems, judges should try to alleviate the contradiction – not aggravate it – so that they will make peace with each other, instead of becoming enemies. People' s jurors come from the masses. They are close to the people and can represent the people. Compared with the professional judges, they have the advantage of understanding customs and people' s feelings. Thus, if they work with the judges, they can encourage both parties to reach an agreement according to the laws, justice, and people' s feelings; achieve both legal and social results; and resolve the contradiction.
Random selection of jurors improves fair trial
The Supreme Court is planning to issue a regulation on the random selection of the people' s jurors because they have found that in some local areas, the courts have fixed jurors. This practice is against the principle of random selection of jurors.
The Supreme Court regulation under discussion requires that the court shouldn' t put fixed jurors in any court. If it is a special case when it is necessary to select jurors with professional backgrounds, the court must receive consent from both parties involved.
It also regulates that the people' s court at the grassroots level should randomly select jurors from the juror list in their court district. Intermediate and higher courts should also randomly select jurors from the juror list in the people' s court at the grassroots level. The court should randomly select the jurors 3 days before the opening of the court and notify all parties involved.
"The purpose of the regulation is to fully implement the people' s juror system, and guarantee justice and openness of the selection procedure of the people' s jurors," said Ni Shouming, spokesman of the Supreme Court of China. He said random selection can cut off the fixed connection between jurors and judges, to ensure a fair trial and prevent the nepotism brought about by personal relationships.
So far, 937 courts have conducted a random selection of jurors, accounting for 31.8% of all cases. Some courts, considering conditions of local judiciary work, divide jurors into different categories according to their geographical location, professional expertise, and occupation. Then, they randomly select jurors according to specific cases so that the jurors can represent the masses.
[1] [2]
|
|
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article